


Last Chance

by Ginipig



Series: Cullistair One-Shots [12]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Deathbed declarations of love, Happy Ending, M/M, Major Character Injury, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22307062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginipig/pseuds/Ginipig
Summary: "Nothing like a near-death experience to make you ... not like death much." Though the Inquisition is finally victorious against Corypheus, not everyone comes away from the battle unscathed.
Relationships: Alistair/Cullen Rutherford, cullistair - Relationship
Series: Cullistair One-Shots [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604995
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	Last Chance

Alistair arrived at Haven with Cullen and the rest of the Inquisitor’s backup. While she and her companions (including, ugh, _Morrigan_ , in her stupid Flemeth dragon form) took on Corypheus and his dragon, their job was to handle … everything else.

This was Corypheus’s final stand, and “everything else” included whatever he had left — the remaining Red Templars, demons, run-of-the-mill darkspawn, you name it.

“Alistair, demon at your six!”

Alistair lopped the head off of the hurlock he was currently fighting and spun around at Cullen’s warning just in time to face one of those green spindly demon things.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t quick enough to avoid being knocked flat on his back by the bastard, and his sword flew from his hand. He fended off one, two, three hits with his shield, but Alistair could tell it would give with one more, so he hurled the damned thing at the demon’s head and rolled to the side …

Only to find himself underneath it again, this time with no escape.

Alistair had heard of how, in a person’s last moments, their life flashed before their eyes. That didn’t happen.

Instead, he experienced his entire life’s worth of regrets. And Maker, did he have regrets.

Not being able to ask King Maric any of the important questions the one time Eamon took him to court, because he hadn’t known the important details.

Throwing his mother’s amulet against the wall in anger and pain when Eamon told him he was being sent to the Chantry.

Not insisting on fighting at Duncan’s side at Ostagar.

Never telling Duncan how much he meant to him.

Not being fast enough to take the final blow against the archdemon, and instead watching his friend sacrifice herself in spite of him having nothing to lose and her leaving Leliana behind.

Not agreeing to take the Warden-Commander position at Amaranthine and being unable to save his fellow Wardens who died there.

Not being convincing enough to stop Clarel. Not being smart enough to figure out Erimond was behind it. Not being able to save all the Wardens lost to Corypheus.

So many regrets for his short number of years, but the worst of all was the most recent — never telling Cullen how he felt about him.

And now he was going to die at the hands of a low-level demon just before Corypheus’s inevitable defeat.

How pathetic.

“Alistair!”

At Cullen’s shout, time reasserted itself with a whoosh, and Cullen appeared in front of him just in time to slash the terror in half and protect Alistair from being impaled by the creature’s razor-sharp claws with his shield.

But even Cullen’s overlarge Inquisition shield was only big enough to protect one person.

With its dying convulsion, the terror lashed out, its claws slicing through Cullen’s breast plate like a knife through butter.

Cullen fell to his knees with a gasp and dropped his sword and shield before he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

“No!” Alistair hurried to Cullen’s side to find him far too pale against that stupid red coat of his and the blood rapidly pooling around him. “Cullen, no, no, no, look at me.”

He had no time to register anything but Cullen gasping his name before he heard another demon screech behind him. Grabbing Cullen’s sword and shield, he stabbed it through the chest and staggered to his feet to protect them both from the continual onslaught.

“Stay with me, Cullen!” He shouted as he fought with a renewed strength. Because he wasn’t just fighting for himself, or the Inquisition, or even the Wardens.

He was fighting for Cullen, and he would die before he let another thing harm him.

A dozen or more dead creatures later, an enormous green explosion shook the ground where the Temple of Sacred Ashes once stood, knocking everyone still standing to the ground.

And then … silence.

Alistair blinked away the green afterburn and pushed himself up onto his elbows. All around him Inquisition soldiers did the same. Not a demon, darkspawn, or anything else Corypheus controlled remained.

The Inquisitor had done it, Maker bless her.

A few voices shouted, soon joined by an entire chorus of victorious whooping.

But Alistair couldn’t celebrate yet. Not with Cullen —

He scrambled to Cullen’s side, praying the Maker hadn’t taken him yet.

“Cullen!”

Cullen’s skin had taken on a greyish pallor, the pool of red spreading so far outward that Alistair worried there was nothing left inside. But at the sound of his name, Cullen turned his head.

“Alsster?” he slurred, those bright amber eyes now a dull, foggy shade of brown, like leaves at the end of autumn.

“I’m right here.” Alistair removed the ruined breastplate and tossed it aside, using that blasted fur to attempt to staunch the bleeding. “We’re going to get you help, Cullen, just stay with me. I need a healer over here!” he shouted to no one in particular.

“You okay?” Cullen’s head lolled, and his breaths came slow and ragged and wet.

“I’m fine,” Alistair said, pressing down on the wounds through tears. “Thanks to you, you dumb, utter bastard.”

“Nuh.” Cullen smirked, his head rocking back and forth in an attempted shake. “’At’s you.”

Alistair let out a stuttering laugh. “Jokes at a time like this?”

“Like you,” Cullen breathed. “’Dwe win?”

“Yeah, we won.”

A long sigh left Cullen then, as if a weight had been lifted, and his eyes fluttered closed.

“Don’t you dare.” Alistair palmed Cullen’s cheek. “Open your eyes, Cullen, please, stay with me.”

“Tired,” Cullen murmured. “Rest.”

“You can rest, but not until I say, do you understand?” Alistair gently smacked Cullen’s cheek. “Cullen, please, don’t you dare die on me!”

Cullen’s lips twitched, but all that came out was a moan.

“No, Cullen, please,” Alistair begged, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I need you to stay here with me, please. Don’t leave me here alone, I can’t lose someone else I love, I _can’t_.”

Cullen’s eyelids fluttered but remained closed, his breaths too few, too shallow, too labored.

Alistair grasped Cullen’s face in both hands and rested their foreheads together. “No, Cullen, please don’t go. I love you.” He kissed Cullen’s forehead. “I love you, I love you, I love you. Please stay.”

But Cullen didn’t move.

Alistair’s heart shattered. He couldn’t be gone. He _couldn’t_.

“Cullen, please.” Alistair kissed him on the lips, which were too cold and too still. “No, please, I love you, I need you. Maker, please, don’t take him. Wake up, Cullen. Please.”

There was shouting behind him and then someone shouted, “Alistair! Where’s —”

And suddenly they were surrounded, a chorus of gasps and _No_ s and _Cullen_ s the last thing Alistair heard before he was unceremoniously shoved aside.

“No!” he shouted, diving back toward Cullen’s chest. He wouldn’t leave Cullen. He loved him, and even if Cullen had already gone to the Maker’s side, he couldn’t let him go just yet. “Cullen!”

“ _Fasta vass_ , Alistair, I’m trying to save him!” Dorian snapped, and arms grabbed Alistair from behind to drag him away.

“Let him help,” said Cassandra, her always steady voice wavering.

“He pushed me out of the way, the stupid idiot,” Alistair cried. “He can’t be gone.”

He wouldn’t let someone else die in his place. Not again. And not Cullen …

Dorian knelt next to Cullen, face red with concentration, for what felt like Ages.

At long last, he gasped and declared, “I’ve done what I can. A proper healer should be able to do more, but he can be moved safely.”

Alistair’s breath left him in a rush. “He’s not … ?” He couldn’t even bring himself to say the word.

“He’s alive and stable for now, but he should be moved taken to a tent or the infirmary. We need Solas immediately.”

* * *

Alistair refused to leave Cullen’s side, even when Solas ordered Cassandra to escort him out. Cassandra, Maker bless her, told Solas where he could stick that suggestion, and though he wasn’t pleased, he allowed them both to stay.

While Solas worked, Cullen began to murmur something. The same thing over and over.

“What’s he saying?” Cassandra asked.

Alistair leaned in. “Cullen? Can you hear me?”

“He is not conscious,” Solas muttered, eyes closed in concentration. “He is delirious.”

Alistair didn’t like the sound of that, but he knelt beside Cullen’s cot and grasped his hand tightly.

This close, he heard what Cullen was saying.

“Alistair …”

Heart in his throat, Alistair whispered, “I’m right here and safe, thanks to you. Don’t stop fighting. I need you.” Then he began to run his fingers through Cullen’s sweat- (and blood-, Maker help him) soaked curls.

After nearly an hour, Solas finally collapsed into a chair and declared that Cullen would survive, though it was a close thing.

Alistair, cheeks damp with tears, kissed Cullen’s hand in relief. “Thank you,” he said to Solas.

Solas’s only response was a soft smile and a bow of his head. Then he rose and left.

“I will inform the others,” Cassandra said, voice thick. “Please let us know when he wakes.”

Alistair promised he would, but his eyes never left Cullen. He couldn’t even muster the will to move other than from kneeling to sitting, and cradling Cullen’s hand in his two, he thanked the Maker and sobbed in gratitude.

* * *

Alistair didn’t know when he’d fallen asleep, but he woke to the feel of gentle fingers stroking his hair.

It felt so good, better than anything he’d felt in a long time, and he smiled, not wanting the dream to end.

“Maker’s breath,” came a whispered voice nearby.

Cullen’s whispered voice.

Alistair shot upright to find Cullen, slightly surprised but looking a damn sight better than he had the last time his eyes had been open, watching him with a sweet smile.

“You’re awake,” Alistair breathed.

“As are you,” said Cullen.

They sat there looking at each other in silence. Alistair’s heart pounded, and in spite of his tears, he couldn’t stop grinning.

“I thought you —” he began.

“You’re still —” Cullen said at the same time.

They both stopped, smiling sheepishly, looked away, looked back. Alistair’s face heated; it was probably as red as Cullen’s right now.

“I owe you a black eye,” he said.

Cullen blinked at that, smile evaporating. “What in Thedas for?”

“For jumping in front of me like that! You almost died!”

“I’m aware,” said Cullen dryly. “But that’s better than the alternative.”

“Which is?”

“Losing you.”

Alistair stopped breathing.

Cullen stared at his own hand, which he opened and closed a few times. “Did you mean it?”

Alistair couldn’t make his mouth move.

“I heard you. Just before I lost consciousness.” Cullen looked up at him, face neutral. “Was it just because I was dying? Or did you mean it? ”

Maker, how could he ask that?

And why couldn’t Alistair answer? In lieu of words, he nodded, swallowing painfully.

“I couldn’t say it then. But I will now.” Cullen reached out and took Alistair’s hand. “I love you, too.”

Tears once again streaked down Alistair’s cheeks. “Then don’t you _ever_ scare me like that again.”

Cullen gave the slightest smile. “Don’t make me have to, and I won’t.”

Alistair took Cullen’s cheek in his hand at the same time Cullen leaned forward, and their lips met.

Corypheus was gone.

Cullen was alive.

But kissing Cullen was by far the greatest thing that had happened to Alistair in a very long time.


End file.
